‘Django Unchained’ receives strong praise from film critics

Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson attend a screening of 'Django Unchained' hosted by The Weinstein Company with The Hollywood Reporter, Samsung Galaxy and The Cinema Society at Ziegfeld Theater on December 11, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Quentin Tarantino, who directed the slave revenge epic, graced the red carpet during the premiere and was all smiles; rightfully so.

This morning, countless of reviews of Django Unchained were published, and thus far the film is receiving strong praise from critics.

“Only Tarantino could come up with such a wild cross-cultural mash, a smorgasbord of ingredients stemming from spaghetti Westerns, German legend, historical slavery, modern rap music, proto-Ku Klux Klan fashion, an assembly of ’60s and ’70s character actors and a leading couple meant to be the distant forebears of blaxploitation hero John Shaft and make it not only digestible but actually pretty delicious,” wrote Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter.

“Django Unchained, writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, is in many ways also his best film, combining his maniacal style of mashed-up fragments from the cultural canon with a seriousness of intent that turns Django into a discussion of both pop and politics,” wrote BoxOffice.com critic James Rocci.

Critics all seem to agree that Django Unchained is violent and gory, but that’s what fans have come to expect from Tarantino.

Peter Debruge from Variety described the film as “immensely satisfying taste of antebellum empowerment packaged as spaghetti-Western homage… A bloody hilarious (and hilariously bloody) Christmas counter-programmer.”

Among the overwhelmingly positive reactions from the film there were a small percentage of critics that weren’t won over.

“The film also comes across like a rough cut that was never looked at as a coherent whole, and some segments that start off as promising become interminable while others feel entirely unnecessary,” Allison Willmore from Movieline.com wrote. “There’s no pressure on or expectation for Tarantino to please anyone other than himself, and the film feels overstuffed with ideas that should have been pruned.”

Mike Ryan, a senior writer for The Huffington Post said he felt the film ran on too long. “Honestly, there’s a tight 120-minute movie in there, somewhere,” Ryan wrote.

Regardless of reviews from critics, moviegoers will have the final say when Django Unchained hits theaters nationwide Christmas day.